Today, it is very popular to cook food on an outdoor grill using wood chips, charcoal briquettes or propane gas. When certain woodchips, such as cherry and hickory, are used, the food being grilled tends to pick up the flavor of the wood chips and this causes the food to taste much better. The same is believed to be true when using charcoal briquettes.
It is also advantageous to grill certain foods outdoors so as to eliminate foul odors from permeating a kitchen and/or adjacent rooms. This is especially true when one wishes to cook certain kinds of fish. Fish odors tend to linger for twelve or more hours. Generally, a greater amount of odors are emitted when the fish contains a high amount of oil, such as salmon. Many people cannot tolerate fish odors in their house.
It has also become common practice for many people to support, enclose and/or wrap different kinds of meat, fish, poultry, and even some vegetables, such as ears of corn, on or in a sheet of aluminum foil. By placing a sheet of aluminum foil under a food item or around a food item, one can eliminate the need to clean the grill the next time they wish to grill food. In addition, by placing a sheet of aluminum foil under a delicate food item, such as a piece of fish, one can prevent the food item from falling down between the grates while it is being grilled. Furthermore, a sheet of aluminum foil placed under a piece of fish, which still has its skin attached, will prevent the skin from adhering to the grates during the grilling process. If the aluminum foil is not present, the skin will stick to the grates. When one attempts to remove the fish from the grill, the meaty flesh of the fish can separate from the skin and may fall between the grates. In addition, when a piece of fish is grilled on a sheet of aluminum foil, the intact piece of fish can be easily removed from the grill by transferring the sheet of aluminum foil and its contents onto a serving tray.
Non-perforated aluminum foil is typically wound up into rolls on a hollow cardboard tube which has a diameter of from between about 1 inch to about 3 inches. The width of the aluminum foil can vary but generally ranges from between about 12 inches to about 24 inches. Such rolls of aluminum foil are commonly sold in many stores, including grocery and mass merchandise stores, and are packaged in an elongated cardboard box having a sharp corrugated edge. The sharp corrugated edge allows a consumer to withdraw a predetermined length of aluminum foil and separate it from the remainder of the roll. This feature permits a consumer to vary the length of the sheet of aluminum foil needed to suit a particular purpose.
When one desires to grill certain food, especially juicy fish, one may take a fork, a knife, or some other sharp object and poke one or more apertures, holes or openings through the sheet of aluminum foil to allow the juices and other residue from the fish to drain away from the fleshy meat while it is being grilled. The openings formed in the sheet of aluminum foil can also decrease the amount of time needed to grill the piece of fish or other food item by allowing heated air to circulate entirely around food item while it is being cooked.
There are several drawbacks with using a fork, a knife or some other sharp object to perforate a sheet of aluminum foil. First, it is dangerous to perforate a sheet of aluminum foil by stabbing the sheet with a sharp object. One could easily puncture and/or cut his or her hand by doing so. Second, many small pieces of the aluminum foil can be left behind that may be hard to clean up or which can adhere themselves to the food item. If tiny bits of aluminum foil become embedded in the food item and the food is eaten, it could cause serious health problems. Third, one could rip or tear a large opening in the sheet of aluminum foil and render it un-useable such that it has to be thrown away. In this case, another sheet of aluminum foil will have to be cut from the aluminum roll resulting in excess aluminum foil being used. Lastly, it is very time consuming to punch multiple openings in each sheet of aluminum foil that is required. Normally, several food items are being grilled at one time in order to feed two or more people.
Now, a device for manually perforating a sheet of aluminum foil in a safe and efficient manner has been invented which is reasonably priced, easy to manufacture, takes up little space in a kitchen drawer, and is simple to operate. The method of perforating a sheet of aluminum foil is also taught.